The Top 3 Reasons You Need New Sunglasses

Your Shades Suck, and It’s Time for a Tymber Upgrade.

There’s an extraordinary chance that you have never really considered it, but your current sunglasses are incredibly inadequate for your lifestyle, your body, and the environment.

I know. These are strong words.

But without harsh language and blunt honesty, sometimes we just won’t ever see the forest (or Tymber) through the trees, if you catch my well placed insinuation.

The reality of the situation is that many of us don’t give a second thought to something as mundane as eyewear. We put our shades on when it is sunny out, we leave them in our vehicles or on the kitchen counter when it is overcast or rainy, and when we lose them or destroy them or leave them behind, we pop into the next gas station and pick up a ten dollar pair of knock offs and don’t think twice about it.

It is time that all of that change--and change for good and for the better.

So let’s run through all the reasons you could do better than your current pair of sunglasses, starting with the micro or the individualistic all the way up to the macro or world-wide impact.

1. Your Current Sunglasses are Not as Unique as You Are.

It sounds weird when you say it out loud. But let’s consider all the ways that we define ourselves. You might define yourself via your musical tastes, which are incredibly unique and specific. There are bands you like. There are bands you dislike. There are styles of music you enjoy, and styles you’d be happy if you never heard ever again as long as you live.

Think about the clothes you wear. The countless decisions you make, day in and day out, whether consciously or subconsciously, about how you look as a person to other people you’re going to meet today, perhaps for the first time ever.

Now consider your current sunglasses.

Do they fit your face well?

Probably not.

Are they copasetic with your style of clothing today? Do they fit your mood today? Match your shirt? How about your shoes?

Even if you aren’t into “fashion” chances are still good that you want your clothes to make a statement about who you are. And you know what most people are going to look at first when they see you?

Your eyes.

And what’s right there, riding on your nose, right in front of your face?

Your shades.

You are an interesting, knowable, and whole person. People want to meet you. They want to ask you questions. They want to say, “Hello.” They want to know more about you.

But what does your current eyewear say about you, immediately, before that other person can even open her lips to speak?

Does it say:

“$8.99 from the local gas station down the road?”

“Neon plastic punk trash from the ‘80’s era?”

“Black, sleek, and plain: ordinary?”

“Just like everyone else?”

“Cheap and easily replaceable?”

Don’t panic.

We’ve all been there.

My former pair of shades said many, if not all, of these things too. And I hadn’t given it much thought really, until one day I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I paused. I took a real long and hard look and realized that while so much of my attire and the way I present myself has been planned out or at the very least thrown together out of the cluster of my selected outfits and shoes, which have at least some kind of overarching theme--my sunglasses just don’t fit me.

They don’t represent me.

Well, at least not very well.

It was time for an upgrade.

And maybe you are thinking, I’ve got an expensive pair of sporty shades already. You know the brand I’m thinking of. They cost hundreds of dollars, and they fit snugly on your cheeks and along your eye line.

Not only is this style dated and currently associated with the Chads and Trixies of the world, but it’s also become so ubiquitous that it is no longer (if it ever really was) cool and unique. Yeah, it’s boring and to be expected.

Regardless of the company you go with, though of course we’d love you to try our Tymber Shades, the wooden frame sunglass revolution is just getting started. You could be on the cutting edge, pun intended! Wood sunglasses are new, intense, and stunning. The first time people see them, they aren’t quite sure what they are even made out of. These new facial accentuators make people give you a second glance. They make you pop out of the crowd. They allow you to show off your unique personal style and eccentricities.

In other words, Tymber Shades are sunglasses that are as unique as you.

Alright, so they are special shades. But style isn’t everything. What else is wrong with my current pair of sunglasses?

We’re so very glad you asked.

2. Your Plastic Shades are Bad for Your Health--Literally.

If you thought the first issue was a hard one to take or hadn’t ever thought about how your sunglasses might be the first thing someone else notices about you, then brace yourself for this one:

But no worries, right? I mean it’s not like this is happening all the time to everyone, right?

Oh, yeah, check out that article above. Looks like 80% of teenagers have a high concentration of plastics in their bodies at any given time. It could even lower sperm count and testosterone levels in males and increase females’ chances of developing breast cancer.

Well, we can try to buy unpackaged fruits and vegetables. We should avoid high processed foods. And we should minimize plastic skin contact, especially over a prolonged period of time and in higher heat situations.

Er…

Well, some of that sounds pretty easy. I mean, it isn’t like I go around with plastics pressed against my body every day. It isn’t like I wear anything on my face that’s made out of plastics, such as polycarbonates, right?

Oh, yeah, and also skin to plastic contact means I’ve been absorbing some of that chemical directly into my body.

And the absorption rate seems to increase under higher temperatures, like, I don’t know, when I’m out in the summer sun, playing in the surf or just lounging by the pool?

Oh, and lubricants, like that naturally occurring sweat thing that my body regularly does, may help to increase the rate of absorption into my body and bloodstream?

Man, could this get any worse?

Yikes!

But I need sunglasses to protect my eyes from the harmful UV rays of the sun. So what am I supposed to do about this? Just accept that my sperm count is going to decrease and/or that I will be at a higher risk of developing breast cancer? Should I just prepare for developing something terrible like type 2 diabetes?

No, you should get better sunglasses, and immediately!

Guess what kinds of sunglasses are guaranteed to not contain any BPA or other harmful plastic chemicals?

Wood sunglasses.

So not only will wooden sunglasses make you stand out in the crowd, they also won’t fill your body with tons of toxic chemicals. Who knew?

All kidding aside, when we started making our own bamboo frame sunglasses, we had considered all of this. Just imagine though coming to the realization that the vast majority of sunglasses that people wear on their faces every day likely contain toxic plastics that are harmful to humans.

We were shocked too.

So one of the aspects we took into high consideration when developing our own sunglasses was what materials were best for human skin.

This seemed important since we all have so much skin and your shades sit up against it all day.

Oh, and yeah, that whole decreased fertility thing. That seemed important too.

Couldn’t help.

So we figured when it came to making our eyewear, we’d keep it as all natural as possible. So we started with that premise, took a good long look at wooden options, and we ended up selecting what we thought was the best option available.

Which brings us to yet another great point:

3. Your Sunglasses are Bad for the Environment.

This should already be fairly obvious. If your current shades are made from plastics, then the byproducts of those plastics are in our atmosphere, our water supply, our oceans, and even our soil, the Earth itself.

Today, plastics are cheap and easy to come by. But at what cost to our future?

As fossil fuel production slows down and we shift to renewable energy sources, costs will go up. Products that in the past were so affordable they were practically free--I’m thinking of plastic bags here, for instance--will someday not only become obsolete but unthinkable.

Why not get ahead of the curve?

We understand that your current pair of shades are already made. The cost both in money and in pollution and in energy has already been paid. But we hope that in the future, you will turn towards renewable sources and sustainable products. Our Tymber Shades are just that. But whoever you turn to for whatever product, we hope that you will, as we have, prioritize the future and look to renewables.

And as we shift away from plastics and fossil fuels, we have to realize that not all alternative materials are created equally.

For instance, we have all recycled an aluminum can before. We’ve all thrown these soda cans into the recycling bin. But we don’t often think about the actual cost of recycling an aluminum can.

While the cost and method of recycling aluminum is much better than that of plastics, we’d like to call your attention to how you recycle wood frames? Our sunglasses are made from majority biodegradable materials. The cost for “recycling” them is nada. So while you might be considering aluminum or other metal framed shades, those too produce pollution and have a higher energy cost associated with producing them than that of grown wood.

Furthermore, while metals and plastics can be recycled, it costs money and energy. Both, but especially that energy cost, is often linked to fossil fuels. In other words, even recycling has a cost associated with it that is one all too often paid for by our environment.

So what’s the answer?

And this isn’t just an answer for sunglasses. This is an answer for our future, itself.

We must shift to sustainable materials, manufacturing, and products.

So when Tymber Shades was founded, when we put together our first prototypes, we thought through all of this:

We wanted a product that was unique.

We wanted a product that was safe for humans to wear on their faces daily.

And we wanted a product that was good for our environment.

How do we get there?

Unique styles of shades?

Check!

Wood frames?

Check!

Made from sustainable bamboo?

Check! Check! Check!

Therein lies our mission. We truly wanted to create

a sustainable shade for a better future.

That wasn’t just marketing jargon.

We wanted to better our world and environment via making a product that was usable, unique, and ultimately universally non-toxic to both our bodies and the world around us.

So we make all of our frames from sustainable bamboo that grows so very fast and is easy to harvest without damaging the root systems and constantly converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Metals and plastics can’t do that.

In fact, they do the exact opposite.

So as we’ve been saying, it’s time for you to upgrade your shades.

Not just for yourself.

But for the planet.

Your current sunglasses suck.

Change the future.

Upgrade your eyewear.

Get yourself a pair of Tymber Shades today.

Sustainable Shades for a Better Future.

All we need is your help to make this world a better place.

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Also in Our Bamboo Tymes

Everything You Need to Know About UV Rays and Your Tymber Shades If you’ve been following the blog for some time or just popped into the About Us page, you know that here at Tymber we pride ourselves at being one of the most (if not the most) eco-friendly sunglass company on the planet while protecting your eyes too!

In a continuation of last week’s post on our design decisions and concerns with starting a sunglasses company, today we will be diving into a discussion of what makes wood sunglasses a better alternative to cheap or traditional plastic sunglasses from say a gas station or even expensive boutique alternatives.

A Super Sustainable Material. We thought it was about time to take a deeper dive into our material design here at Tymber Shades. And while our About Us page does cover a bit of why we decided to go with the manufacturing material we did--bamboo--we thought we could explain it a bit better in an epic two post series.